John Locke

A philosopher who believed that all men were created equal: natural rights. Born on August 29, 1632, died on October 28, 1704.

Life, Liberty, and Property (pursuit of happiness) were all implicated in his time and ours.

The idea that the government should work with the consent of the people as well as respect and protect the peoples' "God-given" rights.

The people should be able to kick out a leader who fails to protect and/or respect them.

He believed humans to be moral, tolerant, and reasonable (unlike his counter-parts such as Hobbes). Peoples character is based purely on their experience, everyone is born the same: blank.

His expression of revolutionary ideas such as Natural Rights and the Social Contract, later sparking the American and French revolutions.

His view on it was that the Natural Rights were inalienable, superseded government authority.

The idea of separating the Church and State to divide powers and not create bias and/or problems in the future.

Religious freedom was a goal of Locke's, spreading across Europe and the New World.

As aggressively criticized in "Two Treatise of Government", Locke despised the idea of one ruler as it would lead to corruption and utter chaos.

Stating that the government and people had mutual obligations.

To demand the rule of law and individual rights

It inspired French thinkers to speak out against absolutism. British colonists also took an important lesson from the Glorious Revolution. They applauded Parliaments fight and saw their own parliaments in the colonies having the same rights.

Government would protect the rights of the people, and the people would act responsibly toward government

People could not protect their rights very well

How governments are formed and what justifies them

Human beings lived in a state of equality and freedom

The landholding elites, not common people who did not own land

They agreed to a contract with a government to protect their rights

The English struggles of the 1600s